


the clouds which come forth are a manifold fence

by KatRoma



Series: of pinwheels and paper daffodils [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Uchiha Sasuke, POV Hatake Kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatRoma/pseuds/KatRoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke comes back different, whether she realizes it or not. Kakashi slowly learns his way around a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the clouds which come forth are a manifold fence

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter of my other story will come out soon-ish. I'm so sorry for the delay on both. School's just caused a work build up, and I'm so terrible at endings that I'm having trouble finishing my other story. Like, I know exactly what's going to happen. It's just not coming out.

Sasuke’s unashamed in settling herself into the apartment, but she was never the sort of person to make herself small. It’s not that she leaves material things around, other than the occasional origami flower or bird, but more that Kakashi is always aware that she’s here.

“I told you that you didn’t have to do the dishes,” he says one month into their new living arrangements, finding his sink empty, and Sasuke lying on her back on the couch, reading a book Sakura lent her.

Without moving her eyes from the page, she says, “Scrubbing egg off a pan is less disgusting if you don’t soak it for sixteen hours. No point in making you do it at two in the morning.”

As she says it, the hands on the wolf-shaped clock Gai bought him ten years back flicks from 12:59 to 1:00. “Were some of those dishes yours?”

The page turns sharply, just a simple maneuvering of two fingers that leaves the paper to crinkle audibly. Having someone else here, even after a month, makes every sound seem louder. “I had water at one point,” she says. “Nutrient bar around four. I wasn’t hungry.”

“You might feel better if you eat something.”

“Maybe.”

Before she was released from the hospital, Tsunade warned him that Sasuke might have issues with her appetite, because people don’t traditionally want food when they don’t feel well, and she’s going to be sick for a while. Even so, she’s supposed to make herself eat. He was good about reminding her in the beginning. Then Team Seven began their missions again, because she’s safe enough to forgo a roommate for a couple days at a time.

Well, he thinks. At least she had water.

“I’m going to take a shower before I fall asleep standing,” he says, moving away from the sink. “Do you need the bathroom?”

Finally, she moves the book, and her whole face is on display. She’s clearly ready for bed, with her hair carelessly pulled back, one of Naruto’s shirts swallowing her body, and a pair of shorts that might be Sakura’s. By now, the Rinnegan, with it’s off putting lavender color and grey circles and tie to his temporary death, has stopped bothering him. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the rest of her.

When Sasuke disappeared, she was a little girl, even if she could kill an enemy without remorse and learn the Chidori within two attempts. Now she’s an adult, any innocence she had torn away years ago. She walks like an adult, talks like an adult, and since she’s likely going to be reinstated as a jounin, she’s also a legal adult. He missed her growing up the way he did Sakura, and Naruto’s still all boyhood giddiness and hormones. Sometimes it’s hard looking at Sasuke, and remembering she’s only fifteen, because there’s so much changed about her that it feels as though she was gone for longer than three years.

Sometimes it’s hard looking at her, and reconciling the sight with the twelve-year-old girl who only called him “Kakashi-sensei” half as often as she was supposed to.

“I’m good,” she says, standing, giving the page one last glance before shutting the book. “How was the mission?”

It was a B-ranked mission that barely deserved the cost, a simple body guarding job of some rich silk merchant from Takigakure who wanted an escort to his country’s borders. “Uneventful,” he answers. “Tomorrow’s a practice day. If you’re feeling up to it, you can come.”

Even after six weeks of treatment, she still has days where she can barely make it out of the apartment, and he’s been genuinely late to meetings for the first time in years helping her clean up blood. Once was bad enough he had to send a clone for Sakura. “Well, I was fine for most of today,” Sasuke says. He doesn’t point out she hardly ate. “Maybe? Probably?”

“I’ll wake you up.”

As she walks by, throwing out a last, “‘Night, then,” he ruffles her hair, causing strands of her bangs to slip out of the elastic holder, and fall across her face. She ducks away, shooting him a good-natured glare that comes out too realistic with Rinnegan, and disappears into her room in five steps.

That girl has the power to help end the world, if she wanted to. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that, too.

 

 

Living with Sasuke in those first few weeks feels an awful lot like a long term, undercover mission where he knows only a vague outline of who she is, and needs to learn the rest as he goes. She still knows him. The transition between childhood and early adulthood, though, leads to changes he missed, and the base of her personality might be the same, but she’s so different she’s almost a stranger, too.

Before she left, she wasn’t this much of a worrier, he thinks, or maybe he just never saw it.

Nightmares are a side effect of their trade she seems immune to, but affect him as surely they do most, and he wakes to find her by the door, twirling the kunai normally under his pillow around her index finger. “Your speed’s cut down by half when you’re still sort of asleep,” she says. “You need to work on your reflexes, Kakashi-sensei.”

Her voice is mocking. The kunai makes thwacking sounds as it cuts through the air, and he thinks of the pinwheel by her window. If he hadn’t trained himself to know when he’s awake, he would think he’s still dreaming. “Has anyone told you’re a brat?” he says as she steps forward, holding the kunai out to him by the handle, and this, at least, hasn’t changed.

Shrugging, she says, “Occasionally,” as he takes it back. The handle’s warm; he was clutching it in his sleep. “Your chakra signature was all over the place,” she adds, more serious this time. “Figured I should wake you up before you cut yourself.”

After years on his own, he doesn’t need his old student’s help, but he’s done it before—woken to blood on his sheets and nicks on his fingers. There’s a reason it disturbs everyone who’s seen her body that her skin’s as blank as a civilian’s. “Go back to sleep,” he says. “You need it more than I do.”

She hesitates before nodding and turning to leave, and at the door, pauses. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I would be if someone let me sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Like a good roommate, she doesn’t ask about the nightmare. Ever since she returned, bringing with her stories of a ghost revived from a forgotten grave, Kakashi’s had dreams of the Obito he remembers walking towards him with one half of his body made of crumbling stone, spewing out accusations. It’s worse because they’re true. Kakashi could’ve protected Rin, saved Obito, tried harder to bring Sasuke back to Konoha the times they saw each other. On the days Kakashi lets himself examine the information Sasuke gave, he wonders if all that means this is, at the foundation, his fault.

The what if’s and could have’s are causing him to compartmentalize his thoughts more than he’s had to in a long time.

He looks up at where she’s still standing in the doorway, fingers resting lightly on the frame and back turned, but head turned to the side, waiting. The sleeve of her shirt slides down one shoulder, revealing three freckles in a diagonal line and a jutting shoulder blade. Though he couldn’t protect her as well as he’d hoped the first time she walked back through Konoha’s gates, maybe this time, at least, he can save her from his past mistakes. If he’d only been brave enough at thirteen to lead Minato to where the rocks at fallen, they could’ve gotten Obito out themselves, or, still better than reality, let him die.

“Go back to sleep,” he says again. When she was younger, he used to see a sliver of her cousin in her smile, but she’s all Itachi now. “I’m sorry for waking you up.”

Angling herself towards him but away, feet facing in opposite directions like a dancer, she says, “Don’t hurt yourself,” before leaving, shutting the door behind her.

 

 

A staple of childhood, traditionally, is that even at their brattiest, children have some willingness to follow directions. Though Sasuke still has the capability to eye roll her way through a conversation, she’s not a student anymore, no matter how often she refers to Naruto and Sakura as her teammates.

It takes until after Sasuke turns sixteen, and is able to practice again, for Kakashi to notice. “That’s a bad idea,” she says the moment he suggests sparring, alternating between the four of them, since Sai managed to come, too. “Co-op would be better.”

No matter the number of times Naruto and Sakura have complained about his training day to day, they’ve never thrown out a serious challenge to his decisions. “Why?” Naruto says, and grins. “Afraid we’ll beat you?”

Sasuke’s not a student anymore. She’s a lot of things, but a student isn’t one of them, and in all technicality, they’re two ranks apart. It shows. “No,” she says, and doesn’t look away from Kakashi. “I don’t know how to activate the Sharingan without activating the Rinnegan, if that’s even possible, and I’m not activating that inside Konoha’s walls again if I don’t have to. Half my attacks aren’t possible without it.”

Backing down from instructions aren’t a good idea, but even sparring with Naruto and Sakura wouldn’t be like sparring with anyone else in their age group, and Kakashi hadn’t known about the Sharingan. Her three teammates, Sai included, stare at her and go ignored. No one likes it when the Rinnegan’s mentioned, as rare as that is, and she keeps it covered more often not.

“You could’ve said something earlier,” Kakashi says.

“I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Here she means, I didn’t think you would set this up.

He stops himself from shifting his weight, not wanting to come across as uncomfortable as he is. “Sakura and Sasuke against Naruto and Sai,” he says. “Taijutsu only. You can use projectiles for long distance attacks.”

Though she doesn’t protest again, the damage is done, and he wonders how long it’ll take, after she’s reinstated, for someone to shove her in ANBU where she’s expected to behave.

 

 

As smart as Sasuke is, there’s still a lot she doesn’t know. Kakashi’s always found household tasks boring, but it’s incredibly entertaining anyway watching her gradually grow more and more frustrated as he teaches her how to cook.

“How did my mother ever have the patience for this?” she says as she fails for the third time in a row at pouring the exact amount of sesame oil into the measuring cup. Now that she’s nearing healthy again, he’s learned she has a tendency to be obsessive. Keeping living areas devoid of clutter makes sense, given she was blind for years, and he doesn’t want to touch the reasoning behind her fixation on showering, but the exacts are surprising. “I knew there was a reason I hated it as a kid.”

Eventually she does succeed in getting the exact measurement all at once, and glares at the offending sesame oil like it’s the reason she’s bad at something useful. “What did you do on solo missions?” Kakashi asks. “Or in Ame? Live off sandwiches and tomatoes?”

She pours the oil in the pan, and turns up the flame to its highest setting. At least in this, she’s willing to accept instructions. “Well, I went on solo missions rarely,” she says as she picks a tomato to cut, and he takes what’s left of last night’s pepper from the refrigerator to help, “and the first time I did my target bought me pretty much everything for three days straight for reasons, so that doesn’t count. Even on partnered missions, though, I mostly just lived on dried fruit and nut mixes. Dried fish strips when I was with Kisame. Deidara could barely start an actual fire without blowing something up, so he wasn’t any better than I was.”

After he realizes that’s all she’s saying, he asks, “And in Ame?”

Though she ducks her head, he still catches her sudden blush. “I didn’t exactly have an apartment when I was there?” she says, like it’s a question. “We don’t really talk about it, so, uh. I had an individual room in the tower of the village head, Kakashi. I might have done all my own cleaning of my living space, but I never had to cook my own food. Ever.”

“You had maids?”

“You don’t need to put it like that!”

He’d assumed, now that she’s older with her sight back and Itachi dead, that she did have an apartment in Ame, or lived with her partner. In Konoha, she’s head of the Uchiha clan, which even on probation makes her one of the most politically influential teenagers in the village, but it hadn’t occurred to him she might receive similar power in Ame. “Wait,” he says, pausing in his pepper chopping, “so when you were younger, you had not only your brother and eight other members of the Akatsuki, but also maids, and no one taught you algebra?”

Her cheeks flush deeper, noticeably red, the color of tomato skin. “There were three members I flat out refused to associate with, so make that five,” she says, “and Itachi was pretty terrible at math, too. Mostly everyone was just more concerned with making sure I didn’t miss a step and fall off the staircase or something. It happened a few times. Are these good enough?”

The cutting work is oddly sloppy for someone so good with sharp objects, but he’ll allow her a pass this once for embarrassment. She had a whole household of people, and no one bothered to teach her how to cook. “They’re fine,” he says. “Scrape it off into into the pan. Be careful not to splash the oil. What would you have done if you had to live alone?”

As she uses the side of the knife to push the tomatoes into the pan, she says, “Last time I lived off Ichiraku take-out and non-bake foods. The real question is how you survived without me. You don’t vaccuum half as much as you should.”

He repeats the process with the peppers. “Once every two weeks isn’t that bad,” he says, and she looks up, eyebrow raised. “My hair isn’t as obvious as yours is.”

“Boys.”

Her smug expression falls the moment he unwraps the raw tuna in front of her. “I’ll teach you how to cube it,” he says, and doesn’t bother hiding the satisfaction he feels at the blatant disgust on Sasuke’s face.

 

 

“You won’t pass your physical if you keep making yourself sicker, Sasuke.”

“Go away.”

There’s blood on Sasuke’s palm, and staining her lips. “I heard you leave,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning against a destroyed post of the Uchiha compound’s training ground. She shakes the blood off her hand, and uses the shoulder of her t-shirt to wipe her mouth, clashing against the sunshine yellow of the fabric. “You know, a normal person who has a nightmare sometimes throws kunai at their bedroom door, not runs away to electrocute their childhood home.”

As a kid, Sasuke was a perfectionist, and some time over the past few years, that perfectionist nature turned into control issues. An explosion like this was going to happen eventually, and he supposes it’s better it happened at night when no one is around. “Would you rather I electrocute your apartment walls?” she asks, nudging away a piece of charred wood with her bare foot. She hadn’t stopped long enough to grab shoes. Any hint of Konoha’s accent’s dropped out of her voice. “I don’t sleep with anything under my pillow.”

“That’s not the point I was trying to make,” he says, and examines the area. He couldn’t have been more than ten minutes behind her, but there’s evidence of every type of nature transformation, and slice marks decorating the trees. The scene lacks her usual neatness. “Seems like a gamble, though,” he continues, not wanting to startle her, “for a someone with a forty million ryo bounty.”

Suddenly, she turns, almost quicker than his normal eye can follow, and extends something like real lightning from two fingers towards a straw bundle not far to his right. When it bursts, her skin flushes from the blue light, and her hair flutters around her like feathers. At twelve, she mastered the Chidori. He doesn’t know why he’s so taken off guard that she managed to create her own.

“Sasori taught me how to create chakra strings,” she says, lowering her arm. “You don’t use hand seals for that. I figured out how to turn my chakra into pure electricity, and now I can create instantaneous bolts of lightning from most of my body—which, keep in mind, I can rip apart into paper. What’s the point behind a weapon?”

She coughs into her elbow, and he grabs her as her knees go out, walking her over to a bench and sitting her down. “You’re not Naruto,” he says, and follows her gaze to the blood on her arm. “You can exhaust your chakra. Do you want to talk about it?”

Again, she uses her shirt, this time the end seam, and wipes it off. “So I’m not allowed to ask you about your nightmares but you can ask me about mine?”

He looks her over, all black hair and pale skin dusted with blood, and thinks about the newspaper riddle from his warfront days, written into something darker. What’s black and white and red all over? Obito’s first kill was an Iwa-nin who saw the emblem on his back, and asked if he knew how to recognize a Uchiha corpse. At the time, it was his shining moment.

As skilled as he is now, he could likely make it into Konoha undetected. Does he ever check on his cousin, and understand what he did?

Her shoulders spasm, a single jerk of movement, as her arm wraps around her stomach, and then she leans to the side, spitting blood at the ground. It’s metallic and harsh, blending with smell of ozone and burnt straw. Without asking her first, he picks her up. She doesn’t protest, resting her head against his arm.

“Be honest,” he says as he brings her home. “Do I have to take you to the hospital? You can still get your citizenship back without immediately being reinstated.”

Even though he gives her the choice, he knows what option he’d prefer her to take. “I’ll be all right if I don’t do this again,” she answers, and pauses before adding, “You know I’m still a missing-nin no matter what I do, right?”

As he pushes open the side door to the compound, he says, “It occurred to me. Will Ame declare you?”

“Konan wouldn’t.” She swings her leg, flicking off ash. “It’s just, it’s so fucked up I came back. Konoha’s my home, I want to be part of it, but no one with any common sense actually wants me here. The people in Ame used to call me ‘The Lady Angel’s angel.’ I’m not going to be the one blamed for leaving. And how long do you think it’ll take before the Godaime realizes what she did, and takes me off your team because of Naruto?”

Kakashi adjusts his hold on her as her face pinches in pain, taking the moment to think of what to say. “We want you here,” he settles with. Though she’s inevitably always going to be part of two opposing cultures, it’s Konoha she belongs to. “You’ve been accepted faster than most. Sasuke, you can talk to me whenever you need to.”

Bluntly, she says, “I won’t,” and then, “I can normally avoid thinking about it like this. I don’t even know where this came from.”

Regardless of how good Sasuke is at manipulating everyone around her into liking her, something he knows her well enough to see, she’s bad at trying to control herself. “Well,” he says, knowing she won’t listen if he tells her, “just remember that anyway. It’s better than hurting yourself like this.”

“Oh, please,” she says, snappish. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”

When he doesn’t answer, she doesn’t say anything else, and the journey back home passes in silence.

 

 

As Sasuke’s roommate and, laughably, sensei, Kakashi is the one who has the vouch for her loyalty while her psychologist confirms a positive mental health report, and Sakura a physical. With all the formalities out the way, he’s given Sasuke’s new forehead protector to give to her, and finds her in the lobby with Naruto, nervously clinging to his shirt sleeve. The moment she sees Kakashi, though, she stands, releasing her friend, who follows her example.

Tension falls off her as she spies the forehead protector in his hand, cold with the fabric rough from newness. “You—” he starts to say, but she’s already on him, arms around his neck, rocking him backwards. He feels her smile through his mask.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

Across the lobby, he catches sight of Kurenai lost in the crowd, her eyebrow lifted in warning scandal. Sakura hugs him too, and Naruto, as do most students to their sensei, and Kakashi’s never gotten a look like this.

 

 

When Kakashi was fourteen, he fell in love with a girl who was already in love with him. They kissed twice, planned an official date, and then he stuck his hand through her chest, killing her in one blow.

Sakura was, selfishly, a bad reminder after she decided to become a medical-nin, even as it helped her grow into herself. Somehow, the reminder of himself is worse when Sasuke says to him over the morning cup of coffee, “I want to move out.”

At the time of Rin’s death, he wasn’t an ANBU, but he was accepting the mission types of one. Everyone who lies about a mission wears the same look, whether they intend to or not. “You can stay if you want,” he says, “even if you have advanced.”

Whether Sasuke knows he knows is up to debate; she’s distracted, tapping bitten nails against the side of her cup. “No, I want to move out,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. For once, her bangs are covering her Rinnegan, even though they’re alone. “We’ll still see each other on missions. I just don’t want to...inconvenience you anymore.”

“Unless I’m helping you calculate rent?”

She doesn’t look up. “Unavoidable.”

Normally, when people join ANBU and don’t understand what they’re about to put themselves through, they act proud on at least some level. For Sasuke, there’s nothing. She wouldn’t bite her nails for pride when she’s so conscious of her appearance. This was going to happen at some point, he’d thought, but he hadn’t expected it to be so soon. It’s suspicious for the ex-missing-nin, or current missing-nin, to go on solo missions. Even with skill like hers, there should’ve been a period of waiting to see how genuine her loyalty is.

“I’ll help you find an apartment,” Kakashi tells her. “We’re still doing B-ranked missions at the most, so your income won’t be the greatest. Naruto’s technically still a gennin.”

Shrugging, she says, “I don’t care. I’d go back home if they’d let me. Cheaper. I know not everyone’s going to be willing to rent to me.”

The tapping stops. “Genma’s girlfriend’s parents work in real estate,” he says. “I can ask.”

“Thanks,” she says, and finishes the coffee. “I can’t make it to the mission dealing,” she continues. “There’s someone I need to talk to about the bounty on my head or something. Story got out that I let a Jinchuruki go. Everywhere but Iwa’s dropping theirs. I humiliated them too many times, I guess.”

“Good,” he says. “Mostly. We’ll talk about apartments after the mission.”

Again, she says, “Thanks,” followed by, “I’m going for a walk.”

Though he should, he doesn’t tell her how transparent she’s being. It’s better that way, if she’s being forced into it, because this is going to be how he knows she’s safe.

 

 

First Sasuke misses Kakashi’s birthday for a solo mission, and then Naruto’s seventeenth a month later. He and Sakura are annoyed with her as a result the next mission after; Sasuke’s been growing more irritable as the weeks pass. Even the best teamwork unravels if stress gets to be too much.

Kakashi doesn’t hear whatever sparks the argument this time, too preoccupied setting up camp with Sai, the only other sensible one of the group today. Presumably Naruto made some comment about peace and his future profession, indirectly directed at Sasuke, who earlier killed a group of nin-for-higher after her without hesitation, when she says, “Brilliant idea, Naruto. I hope you have a plan set up for an alternative means to keep Konoha’s economy going.”

Whatever he was going to say next ends there, and Kakashi pauses in his construction of the fire pit. “Sasuke,” he says, wanting to warn her not to go any further without making it apparent, and she doesn’t so much as acknowledge him.

“The market would still be there,” Naruto says, and Kakashi sighs, rubbing his forehead, “and the hospital. Most of Konoha’s just civilians.”

“Yeah, it is,” she says, crossing her arms, “but most goods in all shinobi villages are imported. Exported goods are usually contained to weaponry, useless in a time of total peace outside of paranoia spikes. A shinobi village’s main source of economic growth is through their services. Why do you think the richest family in Konoha is the Hyuga clan? And do you seriously plan on demilitarizing? Even if the five major villages decided to, the smaller ones would never risk—”

“Sasuke!”

Her shoulders tense, barely noticeable, but she listens. In the beginning weeks of her return to Team Seven, he noticed her self-esteem was lower than it used to be, and even when she was younger, her answer to rebuilding her self-worth was to assert she was somehow better. The trend reemerged in the Water Country, with the innkeeper’s daughter, and several horrifying revelations.

Three days ago she returned from a solo mission. He hopes for her sake it didn’t involve something similar.

Glancing over her shoulder to him, she says, “Fine. I’ll go find wood,” and disappears into the trees. Sai, without prompting, dutifully goes after her.

“She’s not right, is she?” Naruto says, looking between the two of them, and Kakashi, not wanting to give his student unrealistic expectations, tells him she is. “But she didn’t even know the name of the Wind Country’s capital!”

Sakura, more intuitive and less likely to set Sasuke off, says, “We’re not allowed to ask what happened, are we?”

Though classified missions are a necessity, that doesn’t mean anyone has to like it. “Not for another five years,” Kakashi answers, and she and Naruto sigh.

 

 

Sasuke can fight a small army of the dead and a madman obsessed with someone long gone, and come away without a scratch. By now, Kakashi’s learned her capacity to cope, and the civilian the village over should have been the point where she drained what chakra was left in her system with uncoordinated attacks at nothing. Their awkward position isn’t enough to stop the relief he feels that she’s here rather than half-conscious, lying on her back, in some empty place where no one can find her.

It’s surprising, though, her breakdown, with a record like hers. Somehow, they’re both on the floor of his shower, fully dressed with the water flattening their hair and clothes. His legs are bent up, brushing the wall and side of the tub, and one of hers ended up thrown over his knee, dripping water to the tile floor, with the other twisted underneath her. Despite the warmth of the shower, her skin’s cold; her breathing is shallow, and her Sharingan activated, unnoticed. He keeps her tucked against him, face pressed to his shoulder so he can force her Rinnegan eye closed. Right now the last thing she needs is to run her chakra dry in the safety of his apartment.

Eventually, the water turns cold. They can’t stay here forever. “Sasuke,” he says, “you need to move so I can turn this off.”

She’s light, and he can move her easily, if he tries, but he needs a reaction. He gets one, after a moment, when she shudders and shakes herself, Sharingan fading as she slips over the side, and onto the tile floor. As he turns the faucet, stopping the flow, he looks her over. The fabric of her uniform, tight enough dry, weighs her down, making him aware of his own soaked pajamas. Though she’s not bleeding, there’s a bruise he missed before, hand shaped, wrapped around her wrist. Blood stains her cuticles red.

“He brought back Itachi,” she says suddenly, hollow and different, as he drapes a towel across her shoulders. “I ripped Kabuto apart, and everyone he brought back died. I killed Itachi twice.”

“No, no you didn’t,” Kakashi says, and takes her by the arm, pulling her up and off the flooded floor. She moves without protest, easily shaped—skin still cold, like a doll. “That wasn’t him anymore. You can’t—”

“What sort of sister—I should’ve just let—”

“Hey, hey, stop that.” The tears start again, expected and messy. “Look, I’m going to get you dry clothes. I’ll find something. Change, and then you can tell me how this started. First thing in the morning, we’ll get you out of it.”

Kakashi doesn’t remember the following day after he returned to Konoha with Rin’s blood on his hands past appearing at Minato and Kushina’s door, but he imagines it looked something like this. “Okay,” Sasuke says, and lets him lead her back to the shower, to sit her on the edge. It’s not often she looks her height or age, but she does now, small and skinny and a month from seventeen.

 

 

When Sasuke moves back into the apartment, her whole life packed into a couple of bags, the lost look’s faded, and something else taken its place. It only takes a moment after Kakashi hugs her for Sasuke to wrap her arms around him, too.

“Thanks,” she says, fingers curling in his shirt. “Really.”

There are about a dozen answers he has to this, but all he says is “You’re welcome,” like it’s that easy, that simple, like she hasn’t invaded his life so completely he would have allowed her earlier, if only she’d asked.

 

 

Obito, and a missing-nin named Kisame, attempted to capture the remaining Kumo Jinchuruki, and the Raikage called for a Kage Summit. Now, a week later, Team Seven is acting as Tsunade’s guards, and Kakashi hasn’t felt this useless in years.

With Iwa and Kiri staying out of the fight, Kisame is enough to occupy the rest of them, but Sasuke takes on her cousin alone. It’s the first time Kakashi’s seen him in seventeen years; Obito’s taller than him now, with broader shoulders, and skill far exceeding anything his family could have expected of him. He has a mask covering his face, a single slit revealing his eye, because he disgraced himself the day he was meant to die. Watching them fight is like something from a story, or a nightmare, because half of it isn’t visible. Walls and ground are made unimportant by full body shifts into Kamui, something Kakashi never learned for himself. They’re fighting across two dimensions, and there’s nothing he can do to help her.

They reappear into this one together, in line with a balcony but missing it by several feet, Amaterasu falling uncoordinated across the ground like open lantern flames. As one shoots up, higher than the rest and directly for her, Sasuke disappears, Obito following. Without a word, and just one look at the fire burning through infrastructure and corpses, Kisame flees, leaving the rest of them standing in smoke without an opponent. Whatever she’s planning must be dangerous to get him to run, and something he recognizes. To Kakashi’s knowledge, Kirin needs natural storm conditions, but he understands the properties necessary to create artificial lightning, and the air’s shifting on its own.

The Raikage must put this together, too, because he says, “Everyone out,” before Kakashi has the chance.

Just in time, they do, making it into a separate room hopefully far enough, and through the smoke, he misses what happens, but there’re the shapes of two people, and then a flash of blue lightning, cracking across a starry sky and piercing the middle of the room. “So this is the Uchiha family?” a Kumo-nin says, leaning against a wall, watching through a destroyed doorway. “They really are insane.”

“Yeah, maybe him,” Naruto says. “Hey, did the fire just go down?”

Though the smoke is still there, billowing into the air, the base of it is gone. Sasuke materializes in the center of the room, covered in soot and blood with her coat torn at the back. “We should go,” she says, and grabs the wall before she can collapse to the ground.

Half the infrastructure is in ruins, broken open stone and shattered windows, and a large number of samurai dead. When Sasuke hears this, she has no reaction, and Kakashi ignores the thought that maybe there’s some truth to what the Kumo-nin said.

 

 

Some things are inevitable. Kakashi supposes this role reversal of teacher and student was one of them.

Years ago, he and Sasuke sat in this same spot in the Uchiha compound mutually learning how to use the Mangekyo Sharingan, but he was still the one controlling lessons. Now, though, she’s the expert, and if he advances his use of Kamui, then he can help her during Obito’s next attack. “Your aim is great for long distance,” she says during a short break as they sit together on the dock, avoiding chakra exhaustion the best he can, “but we need to work on bringing things back. You’ll also never be able to do that thing he does where he just shifts parts of his body in and out because I can’t either so there’s no way I can show you, but I can teach you how to shift in everything.”

Though Kakashi doesn’t know how well this is going to work with an implanted Sharingan, he at least has to try. “How long did it take you to learn it?”

She’s silent for a moment before saying, “I think almost a year. It won’t take nearly that long for you. You have more experience for one, and you aren’t sick. I didn’t get bad until I was fourteen, but symptoms started showing up when I was thirteen.”

“You were that young?”

“Itachi was, too.”

If Sasuke could learn this sick at thirteen, it shouldn’t be that difficult, unless his lack of blood relation makes it impossible. “Can he use Amaterasu?” he asks. “Or Tsukuyomi?”

“I showed him how to use Tsukuyomi,” she answers, “so be careful. His eyes overpower yours. But no, not Amaterasu. Like I said, I couldn’t learn everything he can do. Maybe some things are just specialized. He can use Susanoo, though. That might mean you can, too.”

He’s only seen Sasuke use Susanoo twice, but from what he knows, it’s one of the most powerful tools the Mangekyo Sharingan can offer. “Sounds useful,” he says. “I’m ready to start again if you are.”

A gust of wind ripples the lake, and sweeps Sasuke’s hair across her face, exposing her Rinnegan. True to her word years ago, she hasn’t activated it inside Konoha’s borders; even now, when teaching him how to use an eye technique she has, too, she’s relying on explanation rather than example. It reminds him, embarrassingly, of the Wave Country, when he explained to Sakura and Naruto how to use chakra to walk up trees.

“Good,” she says, standing with a smile too close to a smirk. “You proved already you can send in moving, solid targets. With the basics out the way, you’re going to start learning how to send in things a little less solid. I promise not make the lightning that powerful.”

When she returned the second time, he thought she wasn’t much like a student anymore, and hadn’t known exactly how true that assessment was.

 

 

During the attack on Root, Kakashi helps, almost loses his whole team anyway, and then learns Danzo was even worse than he thought. “You’ve known this since you were seven,” Kakashi says the morning after Sasuke returns from the hospital, exhausted and still injured, “and never felt the need to tell anyone a village elder thought it was perfectly all right sending a kid to do something like that?”

“Oh my—you too?” she says, staring at him, eyes wide. “Okay, I understand the question from everyone else, but you seriously can’t figure out?”

“He literally had the proof grafted onto him,” he says, not quite sure why he’s angry with her for keeping it to herself, but knowing he is. She’s right, he does understand why she would, but he thought she’d at least trust him. “You’re a clan head, you could’ve just requested an investigation and they’d have to do it.”

“So? Why does it matter?” she says. “He was always going on about ‘for the good of Konoha.’ You have an implanted Sharingan, too, and everyone loves you. My brother and I are just crazy, remember?”

There’s nothing pleasant about being put in the same category as a man who stole eleven or more eyes. “What he did was just illegal, Sasuke,” Kakashi says. “You wouldn’t have had to deal with that if you’d just gone—”

“What? To the Sandaime when I was ten?” she says. “He might have disagreed with it, but he still knew exactly what was happening, which meant the only issue with it was that Itachi didn’t leave me here as originally agreed. So Konoha went and set up all these regulations on graduation requirements and childhood to make sure no one snapped like he supposedly did, and then decided to go and ask his little sister to kill the last of her family because it’s for the good of Konoha. And that order was _public_.”

It really is sick, admittedly, and he’s been justifying the decision of asking her by telling himself she has the best chance to do anything. Before he can say anything, though, Sasuke continues, “I’m not my brother, Kakashi. Shimura practically gloated about orchestrating the massacre when he blackmailed me into working for him, and I threatened to put him into a coma of endless pain so strong even the Hokage couldn’t get him out of it if it came down to it. Death might be a happier ending for everyone.”

“Sasuke—”

She leaves, not bothering to take a jacket again, and he decides to time it ten minutes before going after her. The way she releases pent up emotions might not be the healthiest, but occasionally, it’s better just to give her time, and deal with the consequences.

 

 

When Obito’s death finally comes, it’s anti-climactic for the Konoha public, and for Kakashi. It doesn’t happen during some large attack like the one of Root, or Pein’s attempted invasion. Instead Sasuke’s alone with a six cell ANBU team in the ruins of the Sound Country. For two years, Kakashi thought he’d be there for it, because he has his connections to this, too, and wanted a chance to explain what happened with Rin. He’s eating sashimi with Gai and Kurenai when they hear; Sakura’s working her normal hours at the hospital; Naruto’s sleeping in, sick with the flu.

The news reaches Konoha before Sasuke does, outing her position in ANBU, and a day later she returns with a single squad member out of five. Funerals are scheduled, and Obito, as expected, doesn’t receive one. Kakashi wants to drown everything he’s feeling with alcohol, but that doesn’t seem fair to Sasuke. She might be a jounin, but she’s still a month from eighteen, kept in that place between adulthood and something else. Whatever she is, though, she’s not a child, and hasn’t been a long time.

She enters the apartment nearly twelve hours after returning from another hospital stay, hair messy and wearing clothes other than hers, a paycheck in her hands. “Position’s compromised, so I’m back to a normal jounin,” she says, tossing the envelop on the counter without looking to it. He remembers it, too, quitting suddenly, and getting all his pay at once. “I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

As she must’ve gone through several rounds of questioning, he’s not surprised. She doesn’t look much like Itachi now, or Obito, or her mother, or anyone but herself. “Okay,” he says. “It’s late. You should get some sleep.”

“No, not yet,” she says, and settles cross-legged on the floor instead of the couch, which is covered in unfolded laundry, rubbing her eye. “How’s your week been?”

He understands the coping mechanism of purposeful avoidance. “It’s been fine,” he says, humoring her, and taking a seat next to her. “Boring. Naruto caught the flu from a client, so he’s been out of commission for three days. Apparently Shikamaru and Temari from Suna started dating. I found out there’s a betting pool for how long it’ll take before Sakura and Ino get together.”

With a slight smile that only touches one corner of her mouth, Sasuke says, “The thought of Ino and Sakura dating is horrifying. Ino’s good enough at ‘jealous girlfriend’ as friends. There’s some idea that Naruto and I are going to get together, as if he doesn’t only have eyes for Hinata.”

“That’s one I haven’t heard yet,” he says, and she shrugs. “Oh, the next chuunin exam is scheduled for Konoha. Naruto’s finally taking it. I might start being assigned gennin teams again.”

“I love your specification at ‘start,’” she says. “Plan on failing everyone already?”

Even if he does pass three new gennin somewhere down the years, there’s never going to be another Team Seven. “Well, not everyone can make it,” he says. “If Naruto and Sakura hadn’t figured it out during their test, you would’ve ended up my only gennin that year.”

Sasuke doesn’t answer, and for a moment, he thinks he said something wrong. Then she moves over, sliding across the hardwood floor, and wraps her arms around him. “I’m tired,” she says as he puts an arm around her shoulders, tucking her closer. “It’s been a really long week.”

No, he thinks. It’s been a long ten years.

“You’re home now,” he says, because she’s a month from eighteen, and her generation wasn’t supposed to be tired this young. “You can sleep, if you want.”

After a while, she does, curled against his side. He means to move her, but doesn’t get the chance, because then he falls asleep, too.

 

 

It’s October, and outside Kakashi can hear fireworks celebrating Naruto and four others advancing to chuunin. We should be with them, Kakashi thinks, but Sasuke is kissing him, and they’ve broken too many times to end up anywhere other than here.

The silk of her kimono, white and blue like a private joke, is cool beneath his hand. “Are you sure?” he asks, because this far from unheard of, but she’s eighteen, and neither of them have been whole in years.

“Yeah,” she answers, “Definitely,” and kisses him again. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, again, sorry for the delay on both. Seriously. 
> 
> Also, kind of random, but I realized while writing something else (because I get hit by ideas in the middle of the night and can't sleep until I get them out) for this that "trapped in the amber" Sasuke can probably be classified as as proper protagonist, but the Sasuke I write for this series is much more the antagonist. And I feel like I don't write them all that differently, so it's weird.


End file.
